A tale of two democracies

If the American concept of liberty bears the indelible imprint of the Wild West, the Indian variant has been shaped by its colonial past.

If the American concept of liberty bears the indelible imprint of the Wild West, the Indian variant has been shaped by its colonial past.

America and India are the world’s largest democracies. Both are plural societies tolerant of diversity and have taken recourse to affirmative action. India has a Muslim Head of State, a Sikh chief executive, a Hindu chief justice and Christian chief ministers.

Of the US President’s Cabinet, 40% is of Latin American, Black and Asian origin. Both countries have multi-ethnic sporting and pop culture icons. The ethnic profile of the crew of the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle, and of American armies at the battlefronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, reflect this great ethnic diversity.

There are, however, significant differences in the interplay of state, individual, family and civil society. Ever since the Wild West was won through private enterprise, the state in America has been distrusted, viewed as a constraint on human freedom and enterprise. The state is without doubt effective in policing and regulation, and in providing health care and social security, but Americans would rather trust their money with private enterprise and charities than with the state.

Coming from a country where the state is wont to tax anything and everything, I was intrigued to see George Dubya Bush win an election on a platform of tax cuts. No US President can contemplate taxing oil. Indians may hold the state in contempt for its inefficacy, but like Europeans they nevertheless expect it to do more rather than less, and distrust private enterprise. For the same reason, both Europe and India provide greater protection to labour, despite evidence that labour market inflexibilities result in higher unemployment.

Individualism is strongly entrenched in America. The individual’s natural right of ‘pursuit of happiness’ is enshrined in the Constitution, zealously guarded against infringements by the state. The historian Isaiah Berlin defined such a (‘John Stuart Mill’) concept of liberty that circumscribed the powers of the state as negative.

Liberty in India is more positive in the sense that rights are guaranteed by the state which reserves the power to protect individuals from ‘perceived’ irrational, harmful and alien external threats. Restrictions are consequently imposed on consumption of alcohol, pornography, ‘profane’ and foreign literature, etcetera. If the American concept of liberty bears the indelible imprint of the ‘Frontier’, the Indian variant has been shaped by its colonial past.

Despite trenchant individualism, reflected, for instance, in high divorce rates that threaten the very institution of the nuclear family, Americans have nevertheless learnt to harmonise individual rights. It is a largely self-governing society, with orderly traffic, queues and public spaces. The rule of law is uniformly enforced, with even President Bush’s daughters penalised for driving under influence.

Such orderly self-conduct and law enforcement is unthinkable in India where high net worth individuals can negotiate with the law. Money power exists in all societies, but is wielded in different ways.

Consider two high profile cases, O J Simpson in America and Jessica Lal in India, where powerful individuals got away scot-free. O J Simpson fought his way to freedom by engaging a costly, crack defence team. In the Jessica Lal case the prosecution itself seems to have been influenced. Such systemic deficiencies make enforcement and regulation of anything difficult, from traffic to queues to taxes to power distribution. There is repeated recourse to highly inefficient and discretionary ‘case-by-case’ firefighting.

Why should a democracy, where power ultimately rests with the people, find it so difficult to enforce a uniform rule of law? The explanation possibly lies in differing popular notions of law. Common law in modern civil societies is rooted in religious and moral codes formerly enforced by traditional religious authorities.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, enforcement was through parishes that encompassed everybody. In the Indian tradition, however, different codes were applicable in the same area through hierarchical caste councils. With different rules applicable to different groups, transition to a uniform rule of law based on the Judeo-Christian tradition is proving difficult.

Indians are less effective in teamwork as individual behaviour is more egocentric and destructive of the common good. Consider the pursuit of individual records by sportspersons to the detriment of team goals; or chaotic road traffic, utter disregard of queues, and rampant corruption; or the constant splintering of political parties; or administration where policy making is rarely harmonised.

It is apparent to everybody that energy constitutes the single biggest constraint on sustaining high rates of economic growth, but it is impossible to articulate a harmonised energy policy because of segregated coal, oil, power, nuclear and non-conventional energy departments headed by different ministers. The story is repeated within departments, where desks rarely consult each other. It is manifest in weak standardisation of products, in contiguous houses having different exteriors, in latches, nails and wiring of different shapes, sizes and colours within the same building.

This catastrophic individualism mirrors the inherent strength of the patriarchal family and the weakness of civil society. Spouses rarely divorce despite sharp domestic differences. Parents are overly protective of, and ambitious for, their children. Whereas generous charitable contributions in the US do much to alleviate the lot of those less fortunate, in India all interests are subordinate to those of ‘fortress family’, with individuals willing to bend rules or act in ways that generate negative externalities for the wider community.

The concept of ‘tragedy of the commons’ may have been devised in America, but public spaces in India are littered even as domestic interiors are kept clean, and wanton consumption co-exists with wretched poverty and starvation. Arguably, Indians are loyal spouses and doting parents but poor citizens. Curiously, they become better citizens when they relocate to America where civil society is strong.

(The author is secretary, finance resources, Kerala. Views are personal)